I Was A Male Mary Sue
by PNT
Summary: George is hiding in the bathroom when he's sucked into a different world...through his toilet. Now he has to deal with his inner woman. How thrilling. And that's not the least of his problems, because there's someone in love with him, too. Hiatus-ish.
1. In Which I Escape The Buzz Cut

Disclaimer: I don't own LOTR. If I did I'd be rich and famous instead of a random fanfic writer.

**A/N: **This will take place in Middle-Earth after the first-chapter exposition is done. Promise!

**I Was a Male Mary Sue**

**Chapter 1: In Which I Escape a Buzz Cut**

I locked the door to the bathroom in a frantic last-ditch effort to escape the huge Shears of Terror held in Dad's clumsy hands. I wondered for the millionth time since Dad had given up his job as a professor how the hell he'd decided to become a barber.

I fingered my ginger hair. It flopped into my eyes a bit now, which was why Dad had decided it was time for another Buzz Cut From Hell. For some unfathomable reason, he wanted to try his supposed "skills" on me. The last time he'd caught me, I'd been bald and nicked in some places on my head with short tufts of hair sticking up like wire in others. I tended to wear hats a lot.

I'd been holding out for a bit, though. My hair had actually gotten sort of long. I couldn't decide if this was because Dad had gotten to be more of a klutz or because I had gotten better at dodging him. In any case, it was getting a little annoying brushing it out of my glasses like this, but I wasn't about to tell Dad that. All he needed was an excuse. God knew he'd done enough damage to my head without one.

The stupid cheesy doorbell rang. I call it cheesy because it's one of those doorbells that play music instead of just ringing like a normal one. This was also a new addition. Since Mom died, Dad had pretty much gone crazy. He'd gone from being a perfectly normal math professor (if you can call any of them "normal." Trust me on this one—I've met Dad's ex-colleagues) to a nutcase who gave up tenure to get a singing doorbell and become a barber. A _bad _barber, too. Hence my current state of hiding under the toilet.

"Hi, Sarah," my Orlando-Bloom-obsessed thirteen-year-old sister Nina said.

Hold a second--_Sarah? _The girl of my dreams was in the same house as Dad Reformed, the Shears of Terror, and me? That last one would have been good, except I was cowering beneath a porcelain bowl at the time.

Nina's voice floated up from the dining room. "The doorbell is new. You haven't heard it yet, have you? It plays _Für Elise._" She added in an undertone, "It is _so _stupid."

I couldn't hear Sarah's reply, but it was probably something typically nice. I did hear the next thing she said, though. "Oh, hello, Mr. Larsen. Do you know where George is?"

For a brief second, I had a soaring feeling of wanting to die from happiness. That was quickly replaced by a horror that Nina or Dad would actually reveal where I was.

My worst fears were realised when Dad said, "Oh, yeah. He's in the bathroom. Do you want me to help you guys with your calculus homework if you get stuck?"

"That would be great," said Sarah. I could hear footsteps climbing the stairs.

"Hurry up in there," said Nina, her disembodied voice much closer. She was standing on the other side of the door. I could see her feet.

There was no escape. Because Sarah was here, I had to pretend that I was in the bathroom because I needed to use it and _not _because I was afraid of Dad and the Shears. This left only one option.

"Almost done," I yelled, and flushed the toilet.

A huge jolting sensation ripped through my body and pulled me towards the gurgling porcelain. I could feel my body being stretched and pulled out of shape as it tried to fit in that narrow space between cover and bowl.

An impossibly long, toothpick-shaped me swirled into the plumbing. Strangely enough, it didn't hurt at all to be stretched out and spun around at dizzying speeds. The psychological horror, though, was another matter entirely. It was entirely terrifying for a former short guy to be suddenly as long as a hallway. Longer.

My glasses were wedged in the drain. I grabbed for them with two-foot hair-thin fingers. To no avail, it seemed, because all that happened was my hand slipping away from the precious spectacles and swirling around like a final chunk of solid food in a blender.

From far off in the distance, although it was only the other side of the door, I heard Nina yell, "That's it, George! I'm coming in even if you've got your pants down!" Then there was frantic pounding, followed by the click of a key in a lock. Just when I realised what Nina using the toilet entailed, there was a frightened screech.

"Dad! Sarah! He's gone!" Running feet pounded into the tiny bathroom. At any other time I would be happy that Sarah was worried about me. But right now, I was too busy being terrified out of my wits.

With a horribly final gurgle, the rushing stopped. I felt squished somehow. I guessed that this was probably because I was back to my normal length. How I fit inside the pipe was another matter entirely.

However, there didn't seem to be a pipe anymore. I hurt too much to be sure, but it seemed like I was floating in a river. I'd try to figure out where I actually was in a minute. Right now I had to concentrate on imagining I _hadn't _just been sucked through my toilet. Maybe that would help ease the pain and dizziness of being banged against porcelain walls and spun around at evilly high speeds. Now I knew how crap felt.

The last thing I heard before I blacked out was voices. The last thing I saw was an exquisitely carved boat paddle heading toward my face.


	2. In Which I Suffer a Nasty Shock

Disclaimer: I own George and nobody else except Bob the Friendly Paramecium Who Lives in the River Anduin and Doesn't Appear in the Story Anyway. Everything else is the property of J.R.R. Geniusman.

Chapter 2: In Which I Suffer A Nasty Shock 

I woke up. My face hurt. My arms hurt. My torso hurt. My legs hurt. My fingers hurt. If I could feel my feet, they would probably hurt too.

"Awake?" said a gruff voice, and I opened my aching eyelids. Why did my _eyelids _ache?

An apparition resembling a heavily armed bush leaned over my head. As the world came into focus, I realised that this was, in fact, just a person with a bunch of axes braided into his beard. They were decorated with geometric designs and looked like they were pretty sharp.

Wait. My glasses were stuck in a toilet who-knew-how many miles away. And I had approximately the vision of an earthworm without them. So why could I see the geometric designs, the sharpness, the axes, or even the beard?

Rubbing my head, I sat up. The person leaning over me leapt up and scurried away. Standing up, he was only a foot or so taller than me sitting down. In other words, he was short. Really short.

I jumped to the obvious conclusion. I was dreaming. If I pinched myself, it wouldn't hurt, I'd wake up, and I could get on with the business of calculus. I grabbed the inside of my elbow and immediately wished I hadn't. I nearly fainted from the pain.

So I had to scour around in my mind for a less obvious answer. My scrubbing brush scraped around, digging in hidden recesses of my brain, and then ran smack-dab into Nina. The thought of Nina led to Orlando Bloom, and Orlando Bloom to—

Oh no. This was too weird to compute. How could I have fallen into a world of books and movies through my _toilet_? But there was Gimli, looking exactly as he did in the movie. I knew this because Nina had made me watch it yesterday. Although, come to think of it, the movie Gimli had never had axes braided into his beard.

But then, a scruffy-looking man who needed to be introduced to a bathtub came over to me. This would be Aragorn. I guessed I was in Middle-Earth, unlikely as that my have been.

He took my hand and felt my pulse. I tried not to look at those dirty fingers touching my skin, but out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of manicured nails.

Manicured nails? I looked down. They weren't his. His were every bit as crusty as I expected them to be. No, they were mine. For some reason, _I _was sporting a perfect lily-white handand coral-pink nails. The polish hadn't even chipped, despite the fact that it, presumably, had been swirled through a toilet.

I blinked, just to make sure that it wasn't a trick of my new 20-20 vision. The nails stayed as slender and pink as before. So I had to face the facts. I had a manicure and had been sucked through my toilet into Middle-Earth. This was as unshakable as the Pythagorean theorem. I needed to deal.

Needing and doing are completely separate things. If my throat and legs didn't ache so much, I would have started running and yelled for help. As it was, I settled for watching Aragorn inspect the contents of a beat-up leather bag, apparently looking for something. I pinched myself again, just to make sure.

It hurt like…like…something that hurts a lot. The accursed nails made it about ten times more painful than it would have been otherwise.

If I got home. That was important to remember. What if I couldn't leave Middle-Earth until they invented the toilet here and I could arrange to be flushed down one? That would be bad.

Suddenly, a huge urge to cry hit me like a searchlight. Fighting the urge, I bit my lip, forgetting that it had been pulled through a toilet at extremely high speeds. That hurt, too. A couple of tears leaked out of my eyes, they way they do when I'm too close to an onion.

"I'm sorry about the onion," said Aragorn. "However, when I put in a potion, it should help ease your pain." Did Aragorn normally speak English? Did it matter?

I looked at Gimli through my dripping, aching eyes. He was dabbing at his red face with his beard. I wondered how he was avoiding the axes. The onions didn't seem to bother Aragorn at all. He just went on mixing potions in his dirty, regal manner. With every new ingredient he added, the mixture in the little bowl grew gloppier, more foul-smelling, and less appetising.

How did I get the feeling that I'd have to drink that stuff? (If you could call it drinking, when the substance in question had the consistency of oatmeal mixed with glue.)

With a final sprinkle of something that looked like the dirt from his nails, Aragorn handed me the bowl. "I'm sure it's not the most beautiful potion you've ever seen, but it shouldn't taste too terrible, and you'll feel a lot better when it's down."

I thought Rangers had good skills of observation, but Aragorn didn't see the look of fear on my face. He just stared at me expectantly, the way my math teacher, Mr. Simmons, does when I can't figure out a problem.

I had no choice. I had to drink it. I tipped the bowl back, and the world ended.

Not literally, but for a few seconds there, I wished it had. The sludge tasted about a hundred times worse than I was steeling myself for. It was so powerful that if I'd put it on my fingernails, the polish would have melted right off.

After my head had cleared a bit, I realised strangling Aragorn wasn't exactly fair. He hadn't lied to me. The slop was most certainly not the most beautiful potion I'd seen. It didn't taste too terrible, it tasted poisonous. And I did feel a lot better now that I would hopefully never have to drink it again.

"I'm sorry, my lady," said Aragorn. "I did not know that the potion would have such an effect on your body. I should have thought, and for that I apologise."

"I'm not any kind of noble," I said automatically before the full meaning of the word 'lady' hit me.

"I'm _definitely _not—"

"But your dress is so elaborate…" began Aragorn. Gimli was silent. I think he was worrying about Aragorn's sanity, or possibly mine.

I looked down at myself. A silken dress with pearls sewn on covered my chest, which obscured the view of most of the rest of me. I grabbed my hair, which was considerably easier now that it was extremely thick and two feet long. It looked like something Rumplestiltsken had spun, not like anything that should be coming out of a normal human scalp.

But the pointed ears I felt next kind of rendered the 'human' thing as useless.

Again, I was overtaken by an incredible urge, this time to scream.


	3. In Which Nina Dies Of Jealousy

Disclaimer: I shudder to think of the havoc I would wreak on Arda if I owned LOTR.

**Chapter 3: In Which Nina Dies Of Jealousy**

"What are you going to do with me?" I asked. I sincerely hoped we wouldn't be trekking across Rohan together. My endurance has never been that good. Of course, neither has my vision, and that was working just fine.

"Good question," said Gimli. "But don't ask me. Ask him." He pointed a large finger at Aragorn. "Aragorn's leading us now that Gandalf—left."

"Where's Legolas?" asked Aragorn, using an evasion tactic that might have worked better if I didn't employ it every day on Dad.

"Here," called a voice, and Orlando Bloom stepped into the clearing. While Aragorn and Gimli looked different from the actors in the movie, Legolas was Mr. Bloom to every minute detail, even the badly coloured eyebrows.

"Who is this fair maiden?" he asked, gesturing towards me. I felt rather stupid being called a maiden, not to mention a fair one.

"You were the one who dragged her out of the water. You should know," Gimli pointed out.

Legolas scowled. It appeared as if he'd been trying to impress me. If I were Nina, I would have fainted from joy. As it was, I just wondered if the Legolas in either the movies or the books would be caught dead doing this.

"Yes, but I didn't know who she was. I was so struck by her beauty that I knew I had to save her from drowning. Who are you, fair maiden?" Poor Orlandolas really was smitten. I felt bad for him, considering as he'd just fallen in love with a guy who looked like a girl. In a normal situation, this would have been funny. However, the fact that the guy was me kind of put a damper on the humour.

"Me?" I asked stupidly. I needed a girl's name. "Um… I'm… ah… Jennifer," I said, that being the first name that came to mind. "Er… Jenniferiel. But you can call me Jen." _Please do, in fact. I don't think I'll be able to remember Jenniferiel for very long._

"Then greetings, Lady Jenniferiel," Legolas said, bowing.

"Jen," I reminded him.

At this point in time, Aragorn and Gimli muttered something to the poor Elf. Throwing a last look at me, he disappeared into the bushes with them. I sat down in the leaf-litter, hoping savagely that I'd ruin my dress.

From the bushes came the occasional yell, followed by a hurried "Hush!" I lay down on my back in order to get more of the hideous dress dirty. This was out of sheer spite rather than any brilliant scheme to blend in with the wilderness. Then I had the inspired idea of rolling. I rolled myself around furiously, throwing my body at the bushes and sides of the clearing.

Of course, I was _very _surprised when I landed by a certain bush three certain people were conversing behind. I was so shocked that I forgot to roll and had to listen to the conversation.

"She'd slow us down. If we want to catch those Uruk-Hai, we're going to have to run. Now, we Dwarves are hardy and tough, and—"

"Lady Jenniferiel is an Elf. _We_ are graceful and strong. She can probably run faster than you, Dwarf." I winced at the name I'd come up for myself. Legolas believed me? Something about the toilet I'd fallen through must have seriously warped his personality.

"What kind of name is Jenniferiel, anyway?" muttered Gimli, but he said it too close to the ground for either of the others to hear him.

"So, she's coming, then?" said Aragorn with a resigned sigh. I could tell he wanted to leave me in the nearest hut and never see me again. I didn't exactly blame him, either. If I were Aragorn, I'd want to leave me at the nearest hut too. Except I didn't want to be left at the nearest hut in a strange country. Especially not when my brain was so obviously not functioning.

The three of them exited, the tension not quite thick enough to cut with a butter knife. Gimli stepped on my head. For such a short guy, he was awfully heavy. It was probably all the armour. That or the fact that he wasn't what you'd call skinny.

"Lady Jenniferiel?" said Legolas.

"Jen," I growled. I think I caught Aragorn sniggering.

"We have talked it over," said the noble Elf, "and we have decided that you would be a valuable addition to out hunting party. We shall depart shortly for the plains of Rohan."

"Hunting? You mean like squirrels and rabbits and stuff? I don't believe in that," I said, playing the total idiot. I didn't need to let them know that I was aware of exactly what they were hunting: a pair of hobbits.

"No, not squirrels," said Gimli, clamping his hairy jaws together.

"Just because you're helping us look for them doesn't mean you have to know what they are," added Aragorn, which made no sense whatsoever. I got the sense that he and Gimli didn't like me very much. This was odd, because they'd treated me fine when I'd just come out of the water. Maybe they thought I had bewitched Legolas or something. Actually, that seemed pretty likely. Legolas looked bewitched.

Said Elf handed me a piece of _lembas_ bread, smiling with toothpaste-commercial teeth. I took it, and Legolas's hand happened to brush mine. He had moisturiser-commercial skin. Nina would be floating among the clouds if she were in my place. I wished she were.

In my musing, I crammed a huge bite of the cracker-like thing into my mouth. So what if I wasn't being ladylike? It tasted good, and since I was going to be bounding across endless grasslands, I'd need my energy.

After Legolas had packed away the _lembas_, we all stood up. Then, by some unspoken signal, the three men—male beings, fine—began to run. Somehow, I missed out on the subtle nod of the head or whatever and had to catch up.

What a great start to a wonderful journey!

_Enthusiasm sucks,_ I decided.


	4. In Which The Real Title Is Too Long

Disclaimer: I own George/Jen, whatever you want to call him/her. That's it.

**A/N:** Sorry for the horribly long wait. I've probably lost whatever fans I had in the first place. However, school is almost over, and then I'll be free to write and update more. For now, enjoy Chapter 4.

I'm going to change my pen name to Pentatonikk soon. Just a heads-up, in case you're looking for me and can't find anyone by the name of randomrohanfreak.

Chapter 4: In Which I Do Not Try Out For The Cross-Country Team 

I wasn't sure how long we'd been running when the trees stopped. All I knew was that it had been too long, or that it should have been. I say 'should have' because I should have been tired. Instead, Gimli was huffing and puffing to try and keep up, and I was in the front, just behind Legolas.

After the forest came a whole lot of grass and a few scrubby little bushes. With my lovely new vision, I could see mountains in the distance, although it didn't look like we'd be crossing them. A beautiful blue sky hung over us, spotted with a couple of wispy clouds. If I had been the outdoorsy type, the sight would have been breathtaking. Since I wasn't, it just looked like Dorothy was back in Kansas.

We passed another hour or so without hearing any sound but Gimli's panting. Then Legolas, still running gracefully, said, "All of us except the Dwarf are now in the land of Rohan." Said Dwarf attempted a curse, but it came out as more of a grunt.

South Rohan looked no different from north Gondor: grassy, open, and thoroughly boring. The mountains were still there, though they were now behind us. The sun was high in the sky, beating down mercilessly on our intrepid little group. The thought of me as part of anything 'intrepid' made me laugh. My new, revamped, Elf-princess-y giggle was tinkly-sounding and bell-like, with a lot of hyphens in it. It was yet another part of Jenniferiel that George hated with a passion.

"You have a beautiful laugh," said Legolas. The beat of his words matched that of his feet exactly. From what I had seen of this guy, it was probably in an attempt to sound good. I pitied J.R.R. Tolkien's creation, wherever it was. The _real_ Legolas had some sense of dignity.

"Did you know that 'laugh' in Chinese is 'xiao'?" I asked. _Did you know that I'm insane? Will you leave me alone now?_

"Hm?" asked the Elf. "What's Chinese?"

"Never mind," I said, just before I tripped over my stupid skirt. My legs tangled in the smooth fabric, which bound them together and steadfastly refused to rip. I felt like a mummy, or perhaps a participant in a sack race. I've always been bad at those. As was happening now, I tended to fall over and bruise myself rather badly on the rocks.

"Ow—ow—ow—ow—ow—OWIE—ow!" was my graceful reaction. "This—really—hurts!"

While the world flashed by, vertical merry-go-round style, I saw clips of: Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli; grass; a rather painful rock; another rather painful rock; an extremely painful rock; Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli; and Aragorn's rather painful foot. My momentum bowled the man over, and we both came to a jolting, bumping stop on the hard ground.

"Lady Jenniferiel! Aragorn! Are you all right?" called Legolas, running over to us.

"Do not worry about me, Legolas," said Aragorn, spitting out grass. I groaned and mumbled something along the lines of, 'Look at the pretty stars.'

"It's—puff—morning—puff," puffed Gimli. "No—puff—stars."

"It was a humorous device," I said, "connoting that I am very dizzy."

"Couldn't you have—puff—just said 'I am very dizzy' then?" asked the Dwarf, taking things rather too literally.

"No."

"I see," said Aragorn, dusting himself off and getting up. "We have lost precious time. We must get going."

"Like precious five seconds," I muttered, although quietly. I too climbed up from the rock I was impaled on, although the cursed dress didn't need dusting off—it was still annoyingly crisp and clean.

And we were off again on our noble quest!

Enthusiasm still sucked.

I wished that I'd had the sense to drive a car into the bathroom and flush it down the toilet along with me. It would certainly speed up the chase, although it would drastically alter the plot. Perhaps, if I brought a car, Frodo wouldn't be able to dunk the Ring, and Middle-Earth, along with a borrowed car and me, would be destroyed.

On second thought, running was fine by me.

On third thought, I wanted a car.

On fourth thought, this internal argument was making me feel more than a bit schizophrenic.

We continued running, the three taller people passing each other every so often. Gimli was always dead last. Who can say how long we spent like that before I fell down again? It probably wasn't more than ten minutes.

And, when the bruises had just started to bloom from the first time around, I was on the ground again, making noises and yelling words normally not associated with graceful Elven princesses. This time it was Legolas's foot that stopped me. He stayed standing with his almost creepy level of balance and held out his hand to me. I didn't take it, preferring instead to hoist myself up, grimacing at every movement.

Before Aragorn could say anything about wasting time, I started to run again. The endlessly repetitive scenery was making me feel like a hamster on a wheel, constantly running and going nowhere. _That sounds like it belongs in a song,_ I thought sourly. I could just picture my Jenniferiel self as a country singer, with a huge hat on top of my flowing golden locks and a pair of cowboy boots under the infernal dress.

"_Oh, I've been running and running like a hamster on a wheeeeeel_

_Constantly running and going nowheeeeere…"_

I killed time like that for a while, coming up with more lyrics to the song tentatively titled 'Hamster on a Wheel,' even figuring out a few of the chords. What can I say? I was bored.

I was jolted out of my reverie by Aragorn's voice. "Do you mind not humming, my lady? We are trying to be swift and silent."

"Sorry," I muttered. He was being awfully callous towards a lady for such a noble guy. Could my very presence and effect on Legolas have done this to him? Once again, I wished that I were back home, where my only worries were whether Sarah liked me and, of course, passing the AP Calculus exam. And when Dad would get rid of the singing doorbell. And if I would finally pass my driver's test. And… Well, I may have had a lot of worries, but none of them included dresses, hamsters, rather painful rocks, or Legolas. I very much wished that Legolas was not among my worries.

But the hamster kept running on his—wait, make that her—little wheel, fretting about the Elf and carefully avoiding rocks.


	5. In Which The Title Is Too Long Again

Disclaimer: Still dirt poor, since I'm not making any money off LOTR, since I don't own it.

**A/N:** This chapter contains extreme randomness. Fear not, though, as it will be subsequently explained away. You have been warned. Drop a review to tell me if it's too weird, or if it isn't, or if you feel like being nice.

**Chapter 5: In Which I Experience The Joys Of Schizophrenia**

We trotted along, the uneasy silence punctuated only by Gimli's asthmatic-sounding breathing and our footfalls. I wondered if I should give the dwarf my inhaler, before remembering that my inhaler was in Illinois, many miles and a toilet away. The thought was somewhat depressing. Even more depressing was the thought that I was trapped in a book and a perfect, female, body, and would never go back to Illinois or need an inhaler again.

The sound of thundering hooves rumbled across the grassy plain. It seemed we had company, in the form of a large band of unwashed horsemen. The unwashed part was hardly surprising, though, considering the default state for humans here seemed to be 'encased in a coat of filth that wouldn't look out of place in a pigsty.' _Except for me,_ I thought, then realised that I was no longer human.

I must have looked worried, for Aragorn grabbed me by the collar and dragged me behind a large rock. The man was seriously bad at handling elven women. I wondered how Arwen put up with him.

"Lady," he said. Surprisingly, his tone wasn't mocking. "Stay here while we meet with the Rohirrim. It will not take long. I am hoping that they will have some more information about the whereabouts of what we seek." It was the most honest and open that he'd been with me in the whole time we'd been together. Was that the way girls did it, then? Pouted enough until guys took pity on them? I'd never noticed that before. Sarah and Nina, the two girls I knew best, didn't act like that. Maybe it was just that Aragorn had a soft spot for melancholy-looking Elves.

By the time I'd figured this out, Aragorn had yelled something, and the unwashed horsemen were now crowding around him, very pointy spears…um…pointed at the three men—male beings. Obviously, tact was not a skill normally taught to the Rangers. Either that, or Aragorn just didn't have it. I worried for Gondor's diplomatic future when he became King.

They chatted for some time. I found that if I moved my ears in a certain way, I could hear them clearly. I've always been able to wiggle my ears (call it skill), but it was a lot easier as an elf. The new pointy tips seemed to channel sound perfectly.

"I would cut off your head, Dwarf, if it stood but a little higher from the ground." I recognised that line. My tall (and Lord of the Rings-obsessed) friend Evan used it on me whenever I was being particularly annoying. It wasn't that I was short, per se, just…vertically challenged. Now, of course, I had a lovely, willowy frame. There were also a lot of people here who would have been shorter even than my normal form, if you counted dwarves and hobbits. Granted, I had yet to see a hobbit, but I somehow doubted that the story had been screwed with enough to put them over five foot four.

Thinking about Evan made me homesick again. I missed my friends and family. I hoped I wasn't missing too much class in addition, because I really couldn't afford to lose another day of calculus. And besides, I _liked_ math. It made sense. In math, illogical things like being sucked down your toilet and dumped into a book or movie never happened. Unless, of course, the question went like, "What is probability that a human male will be flushed out into a different world, on which occasion he immediately becomes a beautiful female elf?" Before this whole experience, I would have answered zero without a doubt.

Sighing quietly, I turned back to listen to the conversation. Now, Gimli looked utterly poleaxed, and Legolas had his bow aimed at the head of the man who appeared to be the leader. Éomer, I guessed from the last time I'd read the book. The elf shot a quick glance over at the rock behind which I was crouching, most likely checking if I had seen his selfless, heroic deed. I quickly ducked down (after all, I didn't need to give him any reason to believe I could fall for him), but I was pretty sure he'd caught me.

Not surprisingly, the Rohirrim didn't like having an elf threatening their leader. They shook their spears at him menacingly and made meaningful stabbing motions.

Aragorn seemed to have no problem telling the _Rohirrim_ of our quest. Or their quest, since I was being snubbed. _You're being _stupid_, George,_ I told myself. _You didn't want to be here in the first place, and you certainly didn't want to be traipsing through Rohan looking for hobbits. Who cares if they won't tell you what they're hunting? You know already._ I guessed that my mind intended for these thoughts to be comforting, but they just seemed mocking to me.

Wait. Do normal people have conversations with their brains? Of course, I was hardly 'normal' any more. So was this an elf thing? If Legolas didn't happen to be chatting with spear-wielding horsemen at the moment, I might have asked him. In the meantime, I attempted to reason with my reason. _Stop, brain. I really don't need any more trouble right now._

_Well, you're going to get it. And it's in the form of a certain elf that you're avoiding. May I remind you that the Rohirrim only give the party two horses? You're going to have to ride with someone._

_Legolas and Gimli ride together,_ I told myself.

_Not now they don't, _myself replied smugly. _Look over there._ Sure enough, a pair of horses approached my rock. Since my eyesight was now so good, I could clearly see that Gimli was sitting with Aragorn, and Legolas was alone. The foulest word I knew did a round of my head, stopping to enjoy the scenery.

_Language, George._

Great. My brain could read my mind.

Well, duh.


	6. In Which Everyone Does A Bit Of Slipping

Disclaimer: The obligatory statement absolving J.R.R. of responsibility for the stupid things I make his characters do, absolving myself of ownership of said characters, and a bit of bowing and scraping at the altar of the master thrown in for good measure.

**A/N:** This chapter could have been gotten up a lot faster, but I just _had_ to go on vacation, didn't I? Anyway, I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labour and feel kindly disposed to me enough to drop a review.

By the way, I'm starting a little contest out of sheer curiosity. If anyone can name the source of the story's title, they get whatever prize I can come up with. (And I don't mean the fact that George is a male Mary Sue. It's from a movie title.)

**Chapter 6: In Which Everyone Does A Bit Of Slipping**

I managed to scramble (rather ungracefully, but acquiring coordination has never been foremost amongst my pursuits) onto the back of the horse, attempting to ignore what was on the front of the horse. After a few seconds of tentative balancing on the amazingly slippery creature, I managed to fall off. There's Elven grace for you.

Legolas extended a hand to me, leaning down. I, of course, ignored him and dragged myself up the horse again. It attempted to bite me, but the elf stopped it. Well, at least he was good for _something_. I perched precariously for even less time, during which time I caught Aragorn and Gimli looking at me like I should be doing hard time. Then I was on the ground again. I'm sure I've said before that this is extraordinarily painful ground.

"My lady, you need to grab onto something to stay on the horse," said Legolas, once again reaching down for me. With his other hand, he gestured at Gimli, who had his arms grumpily around Aragorn's waist. I might have been slightly more enthusiastic at the prospect if he hadn't looked so pleased about it.

As it was, the only reply he received was an "Oh _hell_ no" while I once again mounted and plummeted.

"Please," said Aragorn. "We need to get going; this is no time for _lovers' quarrels_." He emphasised the last words, making them harsh and caustic. I reluctantly took the point. (Not the one about the lovers.)

And we were off on another wonderful journey!

And enthusiasm _still_ sucked.

I won't go into the details of our ride here, mostly because I don't really know what happened. For most of the trip, I was staring, determined not to pay attention to my surroundings, at the blades of grass we passed. Still, it was awful. My stupid brain, fresh from winning a few arguments with me, stubbornly clung onto the thought that I was hugging Legolas. (But not really. I wouldn't. That's just my brain talking.) Suffice to say that when we'd arrived at the burned heap of metal and orcs I was more than happy to get off the horse, even though the smell made me want to retch.

The plains were silent as we closed in on the pile, I pinching my nose. Once we had gotten as close as our senses allowed, we stood there for several more minutes, the more skilled trackers among us inspecting the remains. I stood around, feeling useless. To me, it all looked the same, charred black and depressing, not to mention stinking to high heaven. I looked at it with distaste.

But it was I who found the belt. "Look, it's one of the hobb—" I said, before remembering that I wasn't supposed to know about hobbits. "Er…this doesn't look orc-made."

In an instant, the male beings had all come over to my side of the trash-heap. I pointed to my find mutely, wondering who was the lucky one who had to pull it out. It appeared my comrades were also wondering the same thing.

"I nominate Legolas," I said. Drawing blank looks, I added, "To get that bel—_thingy_ out. Of the pile."

Legolas glanced at me, then said, "Gladly, my lady." The blank looks from the other members of the expedition turned dirty very quickly.

The elf produced the object of interest, nodding grimly to the unspoken question. Aragorn yelled something that sounded suspiciously profane and kicked a blackened helmet lying on the ground. Howling and clutching at his foot, he dropped to the ground like me from a horse.

"A hobb—quest object lay here—ow," said Aragorn, putting his considerable tracking, covering-up, and pain-suppressing skills to use, "and the other." None of the rest of us moved. Legolas and Gimli probably weren't sure why this was important, and I didn't want to accidentally step in any tracks and completely screw over the quest.

Aragorn continued muttering, narrating the hobbits' actions to himself. Each time he scooted forward, a yelp of pain combined with an expletive was added to the commentary. "Their bonds were cut—ouch." _That_ got us moving. The other two probably hadn't expected it, and while I had, I followed them because it seemed the smart thing to do.

"Are you sure?" asked Legolas. "Why?"

"Yes, I'm—ow—sure," Aragorn snapped. "And I have no idea why." He continued following the tracks, wherever they were. Even with my improved eyes, it all looked like grass to me. The frayed rope was the only thing I'd been able to recognise.

"They went this way: into Fangorn Forest."

"Are you sure?" asked Legolas. "Why?"

I kind of agreed with him, even though I knew the reason. Fangorn looked _scary_. Even its outlying trees were huge, dark and twisted, with gnarled branches that crept out like my grandmother's fingers. It creeped _me_ out. Fangorn smelled ominous, too: sort of musky, dusty, and old. If anything could smell dark, this forest did. I wouldn't want to go in there, even if I were being pursued by angry orcs.

Well, maybe then. But it was still scary.

"I—don't—know!" said Aragorn through gritted teeth. "If I were a hobbit, I wouldn't go into that forest, not for all the—ow—pipe-weed in the Southfarthing."

Gimli looked at him as if he had just announced he served Sauron.

"Y'know," I said, "Southfarthing, in the Shire? Shire, where the hobbits used to live?"

He continued staring.

And then it hit me. "That wasn't what you meant, was it? You meant—about the hobbits—oh _hell_ no."


	7. In Which I Make A Stirring Speech

Disclaimer: I stole Lord of the Rings from Tolkien's grave. Mwa ha ha.

**A/N:** For the record, I would like to say that I'm really, really, really sorry for making you wait so long and that it would serve me right if nobody reviewed me ever again. But please do anyway. I'll give you a brownie!

I apologize that this chapter isn't as funny as some of the other ones. But Brain has returned, a plot is semi-evident, and I'm working through school (OHGODHELPMEEEEE) and my worst block in recent memory. So yeah. Review to make me feel better! –cheesy grin-

**Chapter 7: In Which I Make A Stirring Speech**

Everyone was staring at me blankly, as if _I_ had just announced I served Sauron. Maybe they thought I actually did, since I knew so much about their quest. This was not good. I was feminine, sharp-sighted, and powerful, but I doubted that would be enough to stop a very angry elf/dwarf/man from brutally eviscerating me.

Legolas was the first to speak, his melodic voice trembling. "Lady Jenniferiel, how could you? I…I thought you were special." Needless to say, the clichéd romantic dialogue didn't help the situation any, and earned the elf and me extremely dirty looks from our companions. Mostly me.

For some reason, I felt sort of sad that I'd let something slip. Even though I'd hated the running and the dress and the girliness and the undue attention, hanging out with the characters of one of my favourite books was beyond cool, and sometimes even fun, like when Aragorn forgot to be mean to me because we were all laughing at Gimli. Even though two of them hated my guts and one of them had a crush on me, I thought that we were almost-sort-of friends. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but…

_Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself and get out of the mess you're in_, interrupted my brain.

_I was just about to, thanks,_ I told it, although I had no idea what to say.

Of course, it picked up on this (it was right there in my mind, after all), and began to harass me about etiquette and such. It didn't seem to know any more than I did about this, which was not surprising, but it did make it hard to think.

I finally settled for the only thing that seemed even remotely okay. "I don't serve Sauron." Legolas perked up at this, but Aragorn and Gimli seemed both unimpressed and unconvinced.

"Really, I don't." I was thinking fast, trying to come up with some sort of Truth (capital t) that would have them acknowledge me as firmly on their side. My brain was little help in this matter, as it seemed to prefer snide remarks to actual thinking. "I do know of your quest, but I'm not a spy. You see…" Here I stopped, a bit unsure of what to say next. Aragorn's hard grey gaze fixed on me was more than a little disconcerting, too.

And then the Way Out of This Mess (capital w, capital o, capital t, capital m) hit me like a ton of bricks. If it hadn't been for that amazing Elven Grace (capital e, capital g), I might have fallen over. I paused dramatically, although I'd already paused for quite some time to think. "…I was looking for them too. I wish to save them from their captors. I was tracking them when I met you." Again unsure of what to say next, I looked around to gauge the reactions of the group. Legolas looked relieved, Gimli like he was starting to believe me, and Aragorn still looked skeptical and scary.

This was going to take some time. I frantically searched for something convincing to say, something that would not get me killed by one large unwashed man. "I'm not lying, either. My people are worried about these times just as much as…er…all the other people who are worried about these times. We heard of the Quest from Elrond, and wish to see it carried out. I mean, we think Sauron is really freaking evil."

_Really freaking evil?_

_Oh, shut it. I don't see you rushing to help me, do I?_ I had bigger worries that my smart-aleck brain at the moment. Heck, I had bigger worries than the fact that I was _conversing_ with my smart-aleck brain at the moment.

"Really freaking evil?" said Aragorn, raising a grimy eyebrow. He looked ominous, and I congratulated myself on using a vocab word even as I shook in my Sturdy Elven Boots (capital s, capital…oh, you know the drill).

"Aye," I said, the response I'd offered my brain not being formal enough. Gimli looked like he was about to burst out laughing and start spitting axes.

"Lady Jenniferiel, I can see Truth and Beauty shining from your Radiant Face," said Legolas (and bugger if I'm going to bother writing out what's capitalized there). "Aragorn, she is no spy."

"Pfft—what—heh—the—pfft—Elf said," Gimli put in helpfully.

Aragorn still looked doubtful. No doubt he'd been seriously traumatized and betrayed and scarred for life would never trust again or something—

_Actually, to the best of my knowledge, he hasn't been—_

—but, gosh, my lie was so terribly _believable_, wasn't it? What more did he want? His companions believed me! Wasn't finding those hobbits more important than sitting around looking annoyingly superior?

I was getting emotional about this. It was like math. If I calmed down and thought and looked at the problem, sooner or later the way to a solution would appear. It didn't mean that I wouldn't make some stupid mistake while doing the work, of course, but I would fall off that horse when it presented itself to me, so to speak.

Think, George. Think, Lady Jenniferiel. Think, Brain. What was Aragorn's Secret Weakness (I'm not even bothering with capitals)?

This time, it hit me like more than one ton of something other than bricks. Sob stories. Aragorn fell for sob stories and melancholy-looking Elves. I remembered this from the time he'd met with the Rohirrim and shoved me behind a rock.

_Oh, this will be _fun_, George_. My brain sounded like it was giggling sadistically.

"I do worry about my family and my home sometimes," I said, hoping that I sounded wistful enough. "This Quest is terribly important to them, for my father gave his life fighting Sauron when I was very young. I have never known him, but I hope he will be happy in the halls of Mandos if his daughter can help to bring down Mordor. I only wish I could see his pride…" Here I added a Mournful Look Towards the Sky.

I've never been much of an actor, but Aragorn seemed to fall for my charade. His dirt-encrusted face softened visibly, and a piece of gunk flaked off his stubble as his muscles settled. Okay, that was just disgusting. "Would you swear that what you say is truth?" (lowercase t) he asked, cautiously.

"Yes," I said. _Please let this work, please let this work, please let this work._

"Would you swear it on your honor as a woman?"

"Er…"

**The Other A/N: **Slightly less of a cliffhanger than last time. Yay? Slightly longer chapter than I usually write for this fic, too. Yay?

And Aragorn _does_ have a soft spot for melancholy-looking Elves. It's in Chapter Five, from like June or something. –hides under table- I'm so bad about updating.

Review! Brownies!


End file.
